


Coming Out With a Bang

by ValdangeloMalec



Category: All Time Low
Genre: Ashton only talks on the phone, Coming Out, Cute, Fluff, I'm stupidly pleased with my title, Jack just sleeps with another guy, Jalex - Freeform, M/M, and we're pretending Matt is still the manager, don't worry its all Jalex, there aren't any feelings with them, wanking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-20
Updated: 2016-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-22 00:28:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,365
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6063850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ValdangeloMalec/pseuds/ValdangeloMalec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jack is curious, which leads to a photo of him making out with a random guy being spread on the internet. Alex is mad, Rian is exasperated, and Zack doesn't really care.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Out With a Bang

**Author's Note:**

> OK there's quite a bit of English slang in here because I'm English. Just fyi. I don't really know what this is, but there isn't enough Jalex fanfiction in the world, so here we go.

Jack Barakat was not gay. Nope, not him. Not even a little bit. His incredible straightness did raise an interesting question though – why was he noticing Alex so much recently? It had started out as little things – the occasional thought of how he had nice lips, and how they seemed pretty soft. Sometimes thoughts of his body would come into play, but that was fine – a heterosexual male can appreciate his bro’s body without it being gay. And hey, if said heterosexual male keeps waking up from dreams about him being pressed against said body, that’s cool too. Alex should be flattered by all of the appreciation of his body that Jack was doing (in a completely straight way, of course).

Jack decided all of this as he was laying wake in his bunk, his bandmates asleep around him, after waking up from another very arousing dream about one bandmate in particular. 

“Do you ever wonder what it would be like to sleep with a guy?” Jack wondered aloud. He was allowed to do that – he trusted his bands mates, and this was definitely a topic four extremely heterosexual males could partake in and still be secure with their sexuality (just to clarify, that sexuality is heterosexual).

“Jack, shut the fuck up,” Rian muttered, turning over in annoyance. 

“That wasn’t a no,” Jack pointed out, standing up and flicking on the light, despite the weak groans of protest from his band mates, all of whom were now awake.

“What are you doing?” Zack demanded while Alex decided to go for the silent, grumpy glare.

“We’re having a band discussion, I feel as though everyone should be awake for it,” Jack huffed, sitting on the sofa. “Sorry for being considerate.”

“Jack, it’s great that you’re questioning your sexuality at last-” Zack began.

“Woah ho ho, who said anything about that. I’m just trying to have a conversation with my other heterosexual friends to try and get to know them better. Is that so bad?”

“It is at four in the morning,” Alex grumbled, staying in bed much like the others had, eyes closed as he snuggled into the blanket. Jack took the opportunity to let his gaze wash over his face, taking in every detail as if he hadn’t done this thousands of times since they first met. He was too focused on Alex, smiling slightly as he looked at him, to notice Rian and Zack sharing a look and an eye roll before telling him to turn of the light and getting ready to sleep again. 

“But we haven’t discussed,” Jack complained.

“If you’re so interested in fucking a guy, then go out and do it, don’t talk to us about it at this ungodly hour. Now turn off the lights and shut the fuck up,” Alex snapped, sounding unnecessarily angry. The room was silent for a few moments before the lights flicked off and Jack climbed back into bed, not attempting to draw anyone into conversation.

It would just be an experiment, Jack thought, biting on his lip thoughtfully. It would practically be scientific. In fact, it would probably be worse if I didn’t do it. The world deserves the truth. With a satisfied noise at his decision, Jack allowed himself to fall into a dreamless sleep. 

 

They didn’t have a concert the next night, so Jack as free to look up the most popular local gay bars and plan his night. He decided against telling the others where he was going – they weren’t too fond of him after the previous night, and it wasn’t like they would go with him if they were.

“I’m off!” he called out, waiting for a grunt in response before leaving the bus. He had taken an embarrassingly long about of time deciding what to wear, and what to do with his hair. He ended up wearing the skinniest jeans he owned and a light blue V-neck that he might have stolen from one of his band mates. He wasn’t even sure which one. After an irritable session with his mirror, he gave up on experimenting with his hair, which was now just a mess on his head. It didn’t look too bad though.

After a long wait in line, he finally managed to get into the club. One look at the flashing lights, the mass amount of men, and the dance floor where they were grinding together made Jack have to convince himself not to bolt out of there. He headed straight to the bathroom – he needed a moment. Sure, he had been prepping himself for this for the majority of the day, but it all felt so real now. He, a very straight man, was in a gay bar, looking for a guy to sleep with. 

Jack stared at his reflection for a few minutes, just breathing in and out, trying to calm himself down enough to go back out.

“Mate, you are pretty hot, but calm down a bit. If you start hyperventilating because of it, it would be an embarrassing story for the hospital.”

Jack spun around, not having heard someone come into the bathroom. “Someone’s gotta do it,” Jack said eventually.

“Maybe someone would if you went to the place that people are,” mystery guy said, nodding towards the door. Jack had to figure out how to play this – he wanted someone to sleep with, and he thought mystery guy was pretty hot (in, y’know, a very straight way), with his tanned skin and pretty brown eyes. 

“Does that mean no one in here is going to be checking me out?” Jack asked, and sure, it wasn’t one of his better lines. Mystery guys eyes flicked quickly up and down his body, before he met him in the eye.

“That was terrible,” he said, the corner of his mouth twitching upwards in the beginning of a smirk. 

“That’s not an answer,” Jack said boldly, stepping closer, his heart rate picking up. Mystery guy sighed, and pulled him in for a chaste kiss. It wasn’t nearly long enough for Jack to gage his own reaction to it.

“Is that all you’ve got?” he asked with a smirk, before pulling him in for another kiss, not giving the guy a chance to answer. Jack immediately deepened the kiss, knowing full well how this part went. He’s been with enough girls to know how to seduce him with his marvelous mouth. 

Jack nibbled on the guys bottom lip, causing him to groan and allow Jack entrance into his mouth.

The guy pulled back slightly, his hands on Jacks neck. “Let me buy you a drink,” he said, taking Jacks hand and leading him out of the bathroom.  
“You don’t have to get me drunk to take advantage of me,” Jack purred, going along with him anyway. 

“You seem nervous,” the guy smirked. “I’m Alec, by the way.” Oh… that was a bit too familiar to be comfortable. 

“Jack,” he introduced as they took a seat near the bar, Alec going to get them some drinks. This went on for a while, the two of them getting steadily drunker until they were making out in the booth they were sitting out, only stopping when they were kicked out for practically humping in public. 

“How far away if your place?” Alec panted out when the two of them separated. 

“Doesn’t matter, I have roommates that won’t be pleased,” Jack said, not technically lying. 

“Mine it is,” Alec smirked, hailing a taxi and giving him the address.

As it turns out, Jack may be slightly less straight than he thought.

 

When Jack woke up, he had no idea where he was, and no idea where the bathroom was, which was a much bigger problem, considering the hangover he was nursing. When he sat up with a much too loud groan, and arm smacked him in the chest and memories of the night before flooded back to him. 

“Shit,” he muttered, standing up and beginning to pull his clothes back on.

“Leaving so soon?” the guy – Alec, Jack remembered – asked, sitting up.

“I have work,” he lied, trying to find his shirt.

“My name is Alec, by the way,” Alec told him, much to Jacks confusion.

“I know – you told me last night. Do you think I would forget so quickly?” Jack asked, mockingly offended.

“Well I hoped not – it’s just that you kept calling me Alex while we were shagging. I assumed you had.” Jack was sure that he turned a horrible shade of red when he was told that.  
“Well, I was drunk. What can you do?” he asked nonchalantly as he found his shirt and pulled it on.

“Right,” Alec said, an eyebrow raised like he didn’t believe him at all. Once Jack was fully dressed, he headed to the door, Alec following him. 

“Can I assume that I won’t be seeing you again?” he asked when they reached the door. Jack would’ve felt guilty if Alec had seemed at all saddened by the idea. 

“I don’t even live in LA – I’m just here for work,” Jack confessed, and Alec nodded, but it didn’t stop him from seeing Jack off with a kiss. 

“I wouldn’t mind you stopping by, if you’re ever here for work again,” he said, giving Jack a smile before closing the door. 

Jack had to take a taxi back to where he and the band were staying, because he had no idea where he was. As soon as he stepped onto the bus, mouth open to greet his friends, he was ambushed.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?!” Alex yelled, not wasting any time to greet him.

“I was gunna have a shower and get changed, is that allowed?” Jack asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Alex, he doesn’t know,” Zack said, looking pointedly at Alex.

“Know what?” Jack asked, looking at the three of them. Rian silently picked up his phone and tossed it to Jack. Open, was a blurry picture which was, despite the bad quality, unmistakably a picture of him and Alec, all over each other in the booth from the night before. 

“There’s more than that one,” Rian said quietly, and Jack flicked through the photos. They got steadily worse, the last two being Jack groping Alec, and the two of them getting into a taxi together. Jack swallowed nervously. 

“So what?” he asked flippantly, and Alex looked like he was ready to explode. 

“What the fuck do you mean so what? These are all over the internet. The fans have all seen them, they’re going crazy on Twitter, we haven’t even looked at Tumblr, and we’ve already had people disgusted by it. God, why are you so stupid? Can’t you see what this could do for the band?”

“You’re the one that told me to do it!” Jack snapped, referring to the late night conversation they had had. 

“Don’t try and pin this on me, Barakat. You need to deal with everything that people are saying, and you need to talk to Matt about all of it.” Rian cleared his throat, getting their attention.

“I don’t want to add onto the bad news, but apparently #Jacklikesdick is trending on twitter,” Jack couldn’t help but snort slightly at that – honestly, that was definitely something their fans would do.

“Fix it,” Alex seethed, and Jack rolled his eyes and opened his twitter, which was overflowing with messages from the fans. Jack knew he should put some sort of explanation, maybe lied a little, but Alex was being such a bitch that he couldn’t help but try and piss him off even more. 

Jack Barakat @JackAllTimeLow  
Haha, guess I can’t deny it anymore ; ) #Jacklikesdick

He tweeted it, feeling rather smug as Alex looked at his tweet. 

“Why are you doing this?” Alex asked tiredly.

“Why are you being such a dick? I’ve had a moment of self-discovery and you’re acting like… you’re acting like some kind of homophobic arse.” But Alex couldn’t be… could he? Just the idea of Alex being homophobic made him feel like he was going to throw up. Alex didn’t even respond. He just left, and Zack trailed after him. Jack went and took his shower, and lay in bed until they had to do a concert that evening. It was their worst concert in a while. 

Jalex Trash @talktomeaboutatl  
Omg don’t even touch me right now #Jalex may well be a thing #Jacklikesdick

ATLover @JackBarakatisbae  
Holy shit is this actually happening? Is @JackAllTimeLow actually coming out? #Jacklikesdick

Benisgreato @rushittingmern  
Um, wtf is this? If I knew @JackAllTimeLow was a fag I never would have listened to their music

Sam @gayisthenewbae  
Thank you so much @JackAllTimeLow it’s so great to have someone I look up to so much come out #Jacklikesdick

Most people were taking it well, Jack conceded as he looked through some tweets. There were still a fair number of assholes who were complaining, which stung a little, and everyone was just assuming that he was gay, which he wasn’t. He wasn’t 100% sure what he was, but he definitely wasn’t gay. 

His phone started buzzing in his hand, and he looked to see that Ashton was calling him. Wonder what he wants to talk about. 

“Heeeyy,” Jack greeted as he answered the phone.

“Why hello, my recently outed friend,” Ashton replied, to which Jack groaned. “How’s that going?”

“Terribly. Alex is being a dick about it,” Jack said, loudly enough for everyone in the bus to hear. Zack sighed loudly, but there was no other reaction.

“Was it the unplanned coming out, or the fact that you’re… whatever sexuality you are?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a bit of both.”

“Well, Luke called it, and decided that it was obvious, Calum had no idea, but who can blame him with how oblivious he was with Michael-”

“Excuse me, what about Michael?” Jack interrupted. 

“Oh, not important, you’ll know at some point,” Ashton said breezily (A/N okay apparently I’m making Michael gay, I didn’t really plan that, but I didn’t even plan putting 5sos in there at all so it’s a surprise for me as well as you) 

“What do I do, Ashton?” Jack suddenly asked, his voice more pained than he intended it to be. 

“About the Alex thing? Or about the whole coming out thing?”

Both,” Jack groaned. 

“Okay, arrange an interview where you can talk about it and let everyone know about you. A lot of people are still confused, and some still think you’re joking.”

“And the other thing?”

“Talk to him, Jack. That’s all you can really do at this point.”

“Fine,” Jack said dully. “I’ll see you soon, okay?” 

“Sure, see ya.” Jack sighed and hung up the phone. He decided to call Matt immediately after, to take Ashton’s advice about the interview. 

“Took your sweet time to call me,” was the answer he got as soon as Matt picked up the phone.

“I’m surprised that you haven’t called me.”

“I decided to give you some time. Even though you were completely stupid, it wasn’t 100% your fault, and I wasn’t sure how you felt about the whole thing.” Jack smiled, touched (and slightly surprised) by Matt’s concern.

“Well I’m fine with it. I was calling to see if you would get me an interview with someone to talk about it. So that the fans know what’s going on, and they don’t need to keep speculating.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“Yeah – it’s the easiest way.”

They talked for a while and decided that no, Jack didn’t want to interview with an LGBT magazine(maybe a bit later) – that they would treat this like any other interview, with the whole band there, and just drop the question in at some point. Jack decided to tell them he was bisexual. 

 

The interview was set for later that afternoon. Jack decided to talk to Alex before then. He didn’t want the interview to be awkward. 

“You two should leave,” he said to Rian and Zack, who looked startled but complied, seeming to know why they were being sent off.

“Don’t be stupid. You can’t be pissy at each other in the interview,” Rian muttered to him as he was leaving. 

Jack walked up to Alex’s bunk and pulled the curtain back. Alex was wanking. He closed the curtain again.

“Oh my god!” Alex called out shrilly, and Jack thought that he must have the image of Alex, looking at him in shock with a hand wrapped loosely around his dick burned into his brain forever. “You could – you could fucking knock or something!”

“Hurry up and finish – I need to talk to you,” Jack said impatiently, trying to act like he wasn’t effected by the experience. 

“I can’t finish with you right outside the bunk!” Jack nearly, very nearly offered to help, before remembering that he probably couldn’t do that anymore. That things wouldn’t be the same. 

“Then just put your pants back on and get out here,” Jack snapped, angered by his own thoughts. Jack heard a huff and shuffling coming from in the bunk, before Alex stepped out, looking disgruntled, still obviously hard (not that Jack looked, of course).

“What?” Alex asked, as the two of them sat on the couch. 

“Ashton said that we need to talk,” Jack said without really thinking about it.

“Oh, are you fucking him as well?” Jack stared at him in shock.

“Why are you acting like this?” Jack asked, actually feeling hurt. Alex winced and looked away.

“I’m mad at you.” was the only response he got. 

“Why? For liking guys?” 

“I’m not homophobic – you know that.”

“Then why are you acting it?”

“I don’t know. What are you going to say at the interview?”

“I’m going to say the truth. I’m going to tell everyone I’m bisexual – and I was hoping that I’d be able to tell them that my best friend supports me – can I?” Jack asked. It didn’t come out harsh, like he had wanted it to. It can out utterly miserable. Alex must’ve picked up on that, because he pulled him into a (slightly awkward, to be honest) hug. 

“I realized I liked guys because I kept having wet dreams about you and I wanted them to stop because they were really annoying,” Jack blurted out, because hey, why not tell a guy you have dreamt about fucking him while hugging said guy who is also currently hard? 

Alex coughed slightly awkwardly. “Yeah, um, you’re not very quiet about those,” he said, and Jack, gaping, pulled away.

“Are you serious? You knew?!”

“So did Rian and Zack. They wear headphones to bed now.”

“They do and you don’t?” Jack asked suggestively, making Alex flush red. “Why would that be?” 

“I assume they don’t get off to it as much as I do,” Alex admitted, and Jack, unable to help it, laughed. 

“I hope that they don’t,” Jack said, before yanking Alex forward and kissing him enthusiastically. 

After a rather long make out session on the too-small couch, Alex grinned and muttered, “This is great.”

“I know. Now we can get #Alexlikesdicktoo trending,” Jack said. Alex punched his am and kissed him again.

 

“This band really does have a thing for accidentally coming out,” Rian sighed, wrinkling his nose at the picture that was being spread around. It was seven months since Jack and Alex had gotten together, and had managed to keep it a secret until this day. 

“I can’t believe that that was the picture that’s being spread,” Jack said sulkily. The said picture was Jack being pinned to their tour bus, his and Alex’s bodies flush as Alex bit and kissed at Jack’s neck. 

“Get over it – it could have been worse,” Alex said.

“I can’t – I need the fans to know that I usually top,” Jack whined, and Rian choked on his toast.

“Jesus fucking Christ, I didn’t need to know that,” Zack muttered as Alex rolled his eyes and Jack grinned up at him.

He was so happy.

Alex’s Bae @JackAllTimeLow  
I’m sure you have all seen the photo, and frankly, I’m disgusted at the response. I top, thank you very much! #Alexismybottombitch


End file.
